Remus
by Upstart Crow
Summary: When his controversial new Padawan's promise is thrown into doubt, Qui-Gon Jinn turns to his estranged, struggling former apprentice for help. Post-TPM, AU.


**prologue**

Either Coruscant's orbit had jumped and skittered in space just enough to throw gravity off a shade, a by-product of the ferocious neon swarm that was its surface, or it was a little odd being back. Obi-Wan could not help but sway a little as the hatch opened and pressurised hot air came through in a wash, the city's particular kind of breeze. Strange, he blinked, to forget.

As usual, the Temple rose above the perpetual traffic-roar as a reassuring, serene hulk; from his close vantage point on the landing pad, its off-white sides looming high enough in the artificial night to simplify the muggy, bustling sky. His boots got a familiar, almost friendly clack from the reinforced metal as he stepped off the wing and strode quietly towards the band of light that marked the way in. One, two, three, four – stop there, for that was the number that'd preoccupied him on his flight back. Could it be called a flight 'back' at this point, when the Temple was no longer strictly speaking home? Four years away, and now there were places that suited him better. That hadn't been the case for most of his life, but it now lived in him as simple fact and made him swallow hard with unwanted discomfort as he stepped soundlessly inside.

It was past hours for most of the full-time residents of the Temple, namely younglings and the older students. This was not totally unwelcome – Obi-Wan only passed one teenaged Padawan in her sleeping robe who cast her eyes downwards so quickly at being caught out of bed that he wanted to laugh and correct her for her guilt. Of course he wouldn't reprimand her, of course he didn't care, what right did he have to tell her off after so long away-? But of course, he realised with a small start, she only saw his robes and lack of a braid – of course anyone in the Core Worlds, here, of all places, would recognise these as subtle indications of rank. On the Outer Rim, people hadn't known and so he hadn't had to think in those terms. Another simple thing.

The Room of a Thousand Fountains drifted past surreal and dark on his left. He hadn't forgotten about it, exactly – of course he had not _forgotten_ anything in the strictest sense of the word – but he paused, breathing faint giddiness half open-mouthed close against the window overlooking the quiet gardens. His breath stirred visibly on the glass, frosting over the view, and he darted away a few soundless paces as if pushed. You're tired, he reminded himself, and kept his feet moving. He'd sent a commsignal ahead to arrange quarters neatly and without hassle. Sleep was the thing.

A gleaming silver protocol droid greeted him upon a thumbprint scan that opened his assigned room. Though every bit as letter-perfect polite and anxiously politically correct as any other protocol droid he'd met outside of a battered, wise-cracking copper specimen employed for liaisons with a nasty band of Toydarian merchants, she seemed to have been programmed to accommodate for a Jedi's sense of privacy. Obi-Wan heard her pottering and clinking around in the other room as he showered quickly and changed into a soft set of robes folded neatly and waiting on a chair.

'Might I get you anything else, Knight Kenobi?' she asked in cheerful, clipped tones as he stepped out of the bathroom towelling off his dark hair.

'No, thank you,' he said absently. The futon had caught his eye and suddenly become his primary focus. 'I'm off to sleep – you don't have to stay.'

'Very good, sir.' She straightened up from folding his travelling robe with an audible whir and tilted her head, adding in a conspiratorial suggestion at another life of programming, 'Pardon me, sir, but I do believe my other charge this evening might be of particular interest to you – Master Qui-Gon Jinn? It was _quite_ the coincidence!'

Obi-Wan's fingers slipped buttoning his robe. 'Sorry?'

'Master Qui-Gon Jinn, sir? He was your old master, was he not?'

'Qui-Gon's-' He blinked and took a breath. Easy. '-he's here?'

'Yes, sir,' the droid confirmed dreamily. 'He arrived yesterday morning with his Padawan. Shall I send him your regards?'

No, Obi-Wan assured her, that was perfectly all right, he would see his old master on his own time, but it was very good of her to say as much and many thanks for her time. She bustled out with a quiet humming sort of satisfaction, the door hissing shut behind her, and suddenly even the murmur of Coruscant traffic was gone and the space quite silent.

He sat down abruptly on the futon, taking a moment before crossing his legs and arranging himself into something halfway like a meditation posture. A shiver twitched through his frame, a belated reaction to the cool processed air against his still-damp skin; instinctively; hastily, without giving it much thought, he drew the edges of his consciousness together and sank back into a warm mental pocket created by the Force. A Jedi did not seek physical comfort, a small voice admonished him in the quiet.

Hush.

A ventilation shaft creaked three floors above. Voices, a snatch of consciousness, entered the dull vibration that was the Room of a Thousand Fountains several hallways and turns away. Obi-Wan breathed out again. It was almost alien, the press of hundreds of minds each precisely attuned as he was, one acknowledging his presence as bare feet paced quietly on the smooth dark stone of the Great Fountain, another a half-asleep Padawan touching curiously at his evening mind from distant sleeping quarters. A soft whirring click as the automatic lights in his quarters dimmed for lack of movement. A speeder without a muffler, distantly, probably a stolen-and-modified type, cutting within the safety parameters close to the Temple walls. And then-

Obi-Wan half-opened his eyes, gazing through the gloom to the smudged silhouette of his discarded travel robe on the spare chair. There – a touch of sound in a clear basin. It rang and rebounded in his head until it grew tinny and unnatural, though the air felt as silent and cool in his quarters as it had when he sat down.

He pushed his tongue into his cheek and gripped his ankle until it hurt. _A Jedi does not seek physical comfort_. Qui-Gon had not realised he was there. After four years investigating Banking Clan corruption on the Outer Rim, he had learned to keep his mind reliably closed, his less-than-physical investigations precise and calculated – overall, he supposed, frowning into the muzzy dark, he should be pleased at his own progress.

This was bloody different, wasn't it. He suppressed a growl and inhaled deep again – this was inevitable, this not-sorted-out uneasiness. Things had changed. They would no longer talk as they did when the Bond existed between them, but surely that was natural, on some level. Surely that was natural enough to give them some sensible common ground.

Enough. He sat up straight for a moment, teetering for a moment on the edge of feeling his mental way out again, before flopping back onto the bedroll with an exasperated sigh. Though the building quietly suggested differently with its childhood hums and murmurs, he was not a Padawan anymore. Enough, now. _You've been alone too long, Obi-Wan._

* * *

><p><strong>note:<strong> This is my first Star Wars story in _years_; please be gentle with me, har. Reviews, suggestions, and critique much appreciated, though this is only a bit part to start with! More to come very soon.


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